


Pilot Fish

by Jaydee_Faire



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Nicaise (Captive Prince) Lives, Some description of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 16:45:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15005096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaydee_Faire/pseuds/Jaydee_Faire
Summary: Nicaise Lives.





	Pilot Fish

**Author's Note:**

> "Louis" is the name I gave the Regent. Nicaise is still kind of a dick.

Nicaise drew his knees to his chest, rested his chin atop them and stared at a tiny sliver of daylight where the canvas covering the wagon was torn. He didn't feel too terrible about tricking that servant boy into taking his place. Servants were made to serve, weren't they, and in his opinion anyone stupid enough to fall for the "let's switch places for fun" line deserved to get his head cut off. He'd been a little younger, his face a little smoother, and Nicaise thought bitterly that when the bloody head was presented to the Regent, it would bear the sort of face that man liked the most: sweet and sleeping, pink rosebud lips parted.

He wasn't stupid enough to think that Louis would think him dead for long. A guard who could be bribed to keep a secret could be bribed to spill one-- that was among the first things Laurent had taught him. No, the guard who'd taken eighteen gold coins and all of Nicaise's best jewelry would drink too much, and talk, or want to impress someone, and talk, or be seized and flogged to within an inch of his life, and talk. 

All of his savings, three years of putting away every spare copper, had only bought him a little time. But a little time was all he needed.

Stupidly, Nicaise had thought that he could flirt and pout Louis into forgetting about Laurent for a little while. A year ago, it might have worked. Maybe. But the steely look in the Regent's eyes had shot through Nicaise's chest, icy and cold, and he'd known in that instant that he only had a handful of days left in that man's favor. If that many. He'd gone back to his own chambers, lay down on his bed, and tried as hard as he could to think like Laurent. 

Laurent had gotten out. With a hulking body slave and an army and a lot of nice horses, even, and Laurent had shaken off the men sent to upset his company and cut his throat and smash him under a rock. Laurent had gotten out. Nicaise could get out, too.

Even dead, Nicaise would be valuable. Laurent had liked him a little, at least more than he'd liked anyone else. Louis didn't wouldn't like to let a jab like that go to waste. So, he'd have Nicaise killed and then send a letter written in blood-- no, something bigger. His ragged, tortured body. No. Too big. His head. Just his head, in a box like the wicked stepmother had demanded in the stories. He'd use it to knock Laurent out of his high saddle, and then kick him while he was down.

From there it had been a simple matter of finding out who he could bribe or fuck to his side. Louis wasn't the type to stand around and watch a bloody execution, but he would require proof. Even if he realized that he'd gotten the wrong head from the start, he'd pack it off to Laurent anyway: after weeks on the road, one rotting face looked like another. He could send swords after Nicaise in private. 

So. A little time. A day, at most, before Nicaise could start to expect the clank and jingle of armed riders coming after him. They'd make doubly sure they had the right head this time.

Think like Laurent. 

Louis would expect him to run south into royal arms, or north toward his hometown. Instead Nicaise would go east, into Vask, and follow the line of the mountains down to Patras. From there it would be simple to follow a trade caravan into Akielos. If he was right-- and he was-- that would be where Laurent waited, from where he'd wage his war, even if it meant fighting the Regent from the north and the Akielon king from the south. He'd find a place in Delfeur to dig his heels in and surround himself with his army and fight, fight dirty, fight hard.

Nicaise was ready to join him.

**Author's Note:**

> It's much easier for me to write Nicaise Lives fic than Auguste Lives, because Nicaise living and turning up again doesn't affect the story as fundamentally as a huge catalyst like Auguste. There'll be an epilogue/reunion fic attached to this eventually, when I figure one out.
> 
> Visit me on Tumblr @ Cyberphuck!


End file.
